Engagement Is A Choice

If you’re wondering why you are looking at footage of a tornado in Brooklyn, it’s because this is the fluke phenomenon that caused me to abruptly lose my internet in the middle of an enormously entertaining podcast discussion with the team from Big Red Potion. I was flattered that they chose my favorite personal mantra regarding games, “engagement is a choice“, as a central point of the discussion, and we talk games from Red Dead Redemption to Mass Effect and Persona 4 (and lots more).

The podcast just went live, so I can finally listen to everything they discussed after the tornado killed my internet (for like two days). Hopefully you guys give it a listen, too!

Out With The Old


Are you tired of it by now, how I have big gaps in blogging and then open my newest post with a statement about how busy I’ve been? Yes? Okay, then I’ll skip that part.

Who’s playing Halo: Reach? I must say, I’ve never been much of a Halo, player, which is to say I dabbled in Halo 2 (by “dabbling” I mean ‘held the controller for approx 5 mins, watched someone else play for approx 15 mins, and wandered off’) and never played the others at all.

But it’s easy to see why, regardless of personal taste, the launch of the title has been a big deal from every angle.

Hello, Halo

There’s the business aspect: Bungie’s last game before it’s officially independent, and the information it can offer about trends in packaged software sales. Those are declining, of course, but a launch of Reach‘s scale promises to offer some answers on whether the core gamer will still show up at retail for the right kind of game.

There’s the scope of the tech and design, too; I’m told they rebuilt the engine from scratch and used a mocap studio because having a lifelike world was so important to the game’s aim. There’s the design angle — how do you iterate on such a huge property and still please your core audience? And then, of course, there are numerous critical angles to explore, as Reach is arguably the most narrative-focused iteration in a franchise that no one would have ever called contemplative or narrative-driven in the past.

For someone like me, there were tons of brand-new angles to consider. So I attended the game’s launch in Times Square and covered it for Gamasutra. I interviewed senior staff from Bungie and also from 343 Industries, Microsoft’s internal division that will take the reins from here on out.

Are you worried about the future of the franchise now that it’s effectively changing hands? Concerned by Microsoft’s suggesting that it could decrease the time between installments and annualize the franchise more? You may or may not have noticed that the talented Chris Morris writes on current events for us at Gamasutra now — he sees cause for concern about Halo‘s future.

Doesn’t Anybody Stay In One Place Anymore?

Change is always hard, though — particularly for gamers. Innovation and evolution seem especially difficult to achieve successfully in this space. If you change what fans are used to, they react poorly. But if you give them more of the same — if, for example, a sequel doesn’t change much over its predecessor — they also react poorly.

This has been hard for game developers to keep pace with as it is, but now we’re in a long console cycle where there’s no new hardware on the horizon whereby tech advancements can refresh a property all by themselves. Notice an increasing number of franchise tangents, reimaginings, reboots under discussion? That’s because it’s so hard to sequelize in the current environment.

I’m impressed with the industry’s approach to combating staleness. Lots of designers have told me later that a long console cycle means that development on the hardware itself — you know, the basics — are pretty well down pat, so they can increasingly focus on refining less tangible elements like story, gameplay, and the interplay between the two.

In order to make things evolve and keep gamers engaged, devs are going to have to try some things they’ve never done before, and while they won’t always hit the mark, ultimately an environment of experimentation and learning is an excellent thing for games. It’s pretty exciting, actually — at this point in a long lifecycle you’d expect us all to be getting a little restless and bored, but the future’s full of possibilities that I, for one, can’t wait to check out.

But again, we’re talking about gamers, here, and many of them freak and pre-judge when they see something different. Easy for me to say — even I had a teeny episode of nerd rage when I saw the trailer for the new Devil May Cry reboot. If my reaction had been any more knee-jerk, my cat would have gone flying across the room.

So I decided to examine the deceptively complex situation in an in-depth analysis at Gamasutra. What a double-edged sword for Ninja Theory, appointed as the new steward of a beloved Japanese franchise. I don’t really envy them at all. I admit, I don’t like it much more than some of you guys do, but let’s be optimistic, because one trailer is not at all enough information on which to create a judgment.

Part of my hesitation comes from the ways I don’t like to see Japanese art and design trends so quickly sloughed away in the eagerness to “globalize.” Certainly, something’s gotta change over there, but I don’t know if the reason Japanese games don’t sell in the West as well as they used to can be fixed by exporting properties to European studios. We’ll see, I suppose.

All Together Now!

All of the major interviews and coverage I’ve done in the past few weeks, in fact, seem to point to the theme I’m discussing here: Innovation, freshness, evolution and change. In case you have missed:

Interview: Atari GO Goes For Online, Social, Mobile Publishing Strategy — The head of Atari’s newest and largest online publishing initiative explains why being a true online publisher is a key survival strategy in the changing climate.

In-Depth: THQ’s Farrell Thinks Outside The Old Hardware Lifecycle — speaking to investors, THQ’s CEO talks about our new climate and where publishers would be served to reallocate their attentions.

Interview: DeLoura On The Rapidly-Evolving Tools Space, New Divergence — longtime tech strategist, most recently of Google (briefly), talks about changes in the development tools space that both respond to and influence changing business models and design paradigms. Similarly, they’re both creating and reacting to a major gap between the AAA and the new mobile/social/indie space.

Interview: IGN Provides Free Office Space To Indies With New ‘Open House’ Program — speaking of indies, IGN has a cool new no-strings-attached program to support and network with indie developers.
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Interview: Building On BioShock 2 With Minerva’s Den — And pursuant to what I said on the narrative-building side, our friend Steve Gaynor talks challenges, opportunities and process in creating a compelling tangent to BioShock 2 and the world of Rapture with the new Minerva’s Den DLC.

I Ain’t Done, This Ain’t The Chorus

I have written a satire of the Gizmodo-browsing, startup-starting, latte-drinking social media entrepreneur over at Thought Catalog. It is all intended in good fun, so please read How I Became A Social Media Millionaire In One Week.

Going to GDC Austin? Are you a student, aspiring student or recent grad? If not, does the sound of me standing behind a podium asking questions of teachers who are sitting at a table sound awesome to you? Did you answer ‘yes’ to any of the preceding questions? If so, have I got the panel for you.

My article on first-person shooters is in GamePro’s October issue, which I think might still be on newsstands. I don’t know! I forgot that I even wrote it! I’m sure I’m forgetting some other things here, but hey, this is enough for you guys, right?

So lastly, I want to thank everyone who has checked out Babycastles and made a donation to help their fundraising efforts. Since I pleaded for the support of the SVGL Army, fundraising has really ramped up, and we owe so much of that to you guys, and those of you who passed the word along. Thank you so much for believing in the ideas that are important to me and my friends. I can’t say it enough.

Indie Games Take Manhattan (With Your Help)

I’ve talked to you a bit before about Babycastles, the arcade some friends of mine are founding in a local community space here in New York City. It’s meant to be a tangible showcase and play space for independent games, the kind a wider audience wouldn’t necessarily encounter on their own. How great for indies, how great for games!

What’s more is the founders want to take what they’ve begun with indie spirit out here in the DIY scene and build a bigger fancier indie arcade IN TIMES SQUARE. Imagine! A mecca for hands-on indie gaming in the culture capital of America! This is something I think all who love games might be interested in supporting.

Babycastles needs funds, though. You guys were so supportive of Kill Screen when I told you about it, and SVGLers helped very much in the fundraising effort — this is the same kind of idea, a spiritual alternative to what already exists that will be good for the gaming space on the whole.

Every little dollar helps, but the Babycastles team has put together a ton of awesome incentive packages, too (apparently they have added a pixelblock rendering of me to the available bonuses?!). Please check it out and consider making even a small donation in support of a great cause — we’ve only got a couple of weeks left!

(Wanna know what it’s like? Check the article I wrote — in the process of researching it, I learned I wanted to do everything I could to help).

The Official SVGL Banner Gallery Is Here!

I swap SVGL’s design and banner header a lot. It’s, like, a ‘thing’ I do. Over the years, I’ve accrued a massive gallery of SVGL banners, most made by me, but with plenty of gifts from readers and friends. Unfortunately my hard drives have been fickle things, and I’ve been unable to hang onto all of them (I lost a big zip file last year full of gift banners).

Lots of you enjoy the little visual bonuses, and I’ve been asked many times over the years to create a gallery of the site’s banners. I finally went ahead and did it, and here it is! I made ‘em unless otherwise noted in the image title.

I have tried to credit creators where I knew them. There are a couple there that were given to me and I, embarrassingly, cannot remember who the artist was. If you gave me a banner and yours is not credited or is miscredited, please please email me. If you gave me a banner I’ve used and you don’t see it there, please re-send for inclusion in the gallery. If you are credited and do NOT want your name used, that’s totally fine too, just shoot me a mail.

I love these pictures. I may at any time re-use any of the ones that are in there, too, because as much as I love to change up the design here regularly, some of those are just way too fun never to be seen again!

I felt a little nostalgic assembling this gallery, so I hope it’s not too cheesy if I deliver you all a sincere thanks for being part of Sexy Videogameland. Game journalism is my full-time career, and sometimes floods my life even more than I want it to. But I started this blog with the hope of making that happen, and it happened for me in great part because of you guys. Because you thought it was worth reading, because you gave me your feedback and you liked “being here” with each other and because you supported my work. Most of you probably weren’t “here” in the beginning, but I know some of you were, so thanks. A million.

The New Immersion


As social networking has surged, I’ve found myself blogging less. When I began SVGL, I used to post sometimes multiple times per day, if my time permitted; I was full of ideas and I loved having the opportunity to regularly connect and engage with the community that was building itself here.

So I’ve observed the slowdown in my blogging habits with some concern. Has it meant I have fewer ideas now? Am I just too busy with my pro work to keep up my dear little blog anymore? Am I less interested in video game conversation than I used to be, now that the majority of my waking hours are spent in that space? Am I burning out, or something?

Then I realized I still produce just as much community content as I did before; it’s simply taking a different shape. Many of you have transitioned with me from SVGL to the venues I use with far more regularity: Twitter and Formspring. I imagine that if one accumulated the sum total of text related to the video game community that I place on Twitter and Formspring on a regular basis, the result would be pretty parallel to the amount of content that I used to produce blogging. I’m still sharing my ideas with the community; it’s just taken on a different shape.

I remember when N’Gai Croal, one of the most venerated writers doing the work that I hoped to join, began to post less on his Level Up blog. Alongside that, he was becoming a real power Twitter user. I didn’t see the point of Twitter at the time; “why would anyone be interested in what I am doing all day, and what do I care what all these strangers had for breakfast,” I wondered. When I heard trendy folk saying that Twitter was anything close to “journalism”, I was scornful. It seemed preposterous.

I teased N’Gai a lot about his early-adopter Twitter evangelism. But he is well-reputed among us all for his prescience and his big-picture thinking, and I now realize that at the time, he had immediately realized something that took me a lot longer to grasp: Twitter is a brilliant communication platform, and it does, in fact, serve the same function for many that a lot of blogs do.

The first time I attended events like GDC or E3, people came up to me and said, “oh, I read your blog.” The most recent time I attended these events, people came up to me and said, “oh, I read your Twitter.” I found it bizarre, but it makes sense.

Twitter and Formspring are quick-hit, instant-access experiences. 140 characters are more effective than 1400, sometimes. Rather than cull my RSS feeds and read sprawling forum threads to discover what the community is interested in and speak to it, you use these social networking venues to bring your interests to me directly (that plenty of Formspring questions are about my sex life and shoe size or whatever is an unfortunate side-effect).

And I realized recently that these new media are having a similar transformative effect on the video game industry. We’re being trained in this socially-networked era of bite-size communications, and all media are evolving alongside it. I used to read music blogs to discover new songs, but now I simply follow those bloggers on Twitter and when they post a new track, I just pick and choose what links to click from their feeds. My favorite book right now is a reflection of these new fashions of interaction.

When it comes to video games, sales of traditional 60-hour packaged software video games are declining, but sales of smaller, easy-access digitally-distributed titles are on the rise. Even someone who was a “light” gamer before has new options: instead of downloading and installing some kind of PC executable, they’re playing iPhone apps while they wait for the subway.

Much conversation takes place in the social gaming space about how they will cannibalize the console industry, as if the two platforms were mutually exclusive. This message is often reduced to its barest bones, and translated as “Facebook games are the new ‘video game’, and console video games will cease to exist.”

Certainly that message is worth scoffing at; gamers still want depth. But the way they want it delivered is definitely evolving; social media is gaining steam, and we, the primary ‘gamer generation’, are growing older. Maybe the adolescents of the coming era are begging not for a gaming console, but for a Steam account. We want our content available in an accessible, jump-in-jump-out way. We want it always on, always there, living intangible and persistent on invisible digital strings.

But these rising trends are having massive impacts on the economic models of the businesses they’re enabling. To use the music example again, I can listen to 20 new songs a day if I want to, just by following artists and music bloggers on Twitter. Do I spend money, though? Not too often. I buy records often when I’m in love with a band, but I listen to free digital music much more. Most of the music I own, I found or someone gave it to me. How are bands supposed to make any money?

That the game industry is so high-risk has been my greatest lament regarding traditional games; when success is so hard and so much cash is required to even give it a shot, no one wants to lose millions because they tried something new and interesting that didn’t work. If people are buying fewer console titles — and they are — then the game industry becomes even more hit-driven than it used to be.

We’ve always looked to indies to use their freedom and agility to create real innovation, but independents have long had challenges of their own — low risk doesn’t mean no risk, and lower cost doesn’t mean “affordable.” If indies can’t reach their audiences, they’re still disabled. And broke, probably. The upside of this online shift in the way we consume is that the indie scene becomes even more relevant. When the real good content is discovered by crowdsourcing on social networks and obtained by a one-click download, the playing field of AAA guns and indie developers looks a lot more even.

That doesn’t mean I feel convinced we’re not losing something in the transition. My least-favorite phrase in developer interviews used to be “bite-sized chunks.” Not only is that aesthetically unappealing, but to me it spoke of a design philosophy that eschewed depth in favor of accessibility. I’m still not so sure it doesn’t.

I hope I never stop blogging, and I hope game developers will still make hours-long walled gardens for me to escape into, just like I’ve done since I was a little girl. There’s hope for console devotees in games like the rightfully-flourishing Red Dead Redemption, which seems to face an easy skate from here to Game of the Year for pretty much everyone. One can play that game for hours. One can also play it for five minutes.

The chronology of the gaming consoles I’ve owned is now finished over at Thought Catalog. I notice a marked decrease in sentimentality from the first installment to the last. Chalk it up to nostalgia, but my changing relationship with the landscape has a lot to do with it, too.

How To Be A Stingy Scoundrel

[GameStop makes a zillion dollars by buying the game you paid $60 bucks for back from you for $8 and then reselling it for $40. Prove you’re not gonna take it any more by… running a con? That’s what my pal, film critic, Consumerist blogger and former game journo and SVGL-ally Phil Villarreal suggests you do in the following excerpt from his deadpan-sociopathic (and funny, of course) tome Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel. SVGL does not condone, encourage or endorse criminal activities, so if you try this, don’t tell me.

Experience with Internet People dictates that despite this preface, some of you are still going to read this and somehow end up thinking I wrote it because it is printed on my blog. SO LET ME YELL IN YR FACES THIS IS A BOOK EXCERPT, PHIL WROTE IT NOT ME, IT IS REPUBLISHED HERE WITH PERMISSION SO IF YOU LIKE IT GO BUY HIS BOOK AND IF YOU HATE IT GO YELL AT HIM.]

Video-game and DVD retailers stick it to you by refusing to accept opened disc packages for returns. Should you accidentally buy a copy of Pootie Tang, Kangaroo Jack, or Kung Pow! Enter the Fist and not realize the error of your ways until you’ve broken the seal, the policy leaves you with little recourse other than lugging it over to a used DVD shop, where you’ll quite possibly be put through the indignity of fingerprinting and a driver’s license check for a measly 50 cents in cash or a dollar in store credit. Sure, you could march the DVD back to the store and appeal to a manager, but ninety-nine times out of 100 you’ll only be wasting your breath. After all, it says right there on the receipt that the company doesn’t accept opened DVDs or software for returns. The manager can just tell you to read the receipt, making you look like an ass in front of everyone behind you in line.

Notice a few sentences ago, however, that I said “little recourse,” not “no recourse.” There’s a devious, deceptively obvious magic trick you can pull that will let you tiptoe around the policy and return your rancid DVD or game for the cash you so foolishly squandered, deflecting the supposedly hidebound policy back in the customer service desk’s defenses like a light saber would a laser gun blast. Employing this Force requires no browbeating, smooth talking, or voodoo sacrifices—just a little bit of moxie and a resolve to keep a straight face.

Now that I’ve backed into the juicy stuff for a couple hundred words, here are the goods: Tell the man behind your desk that your disc is “defective” and “doesn’t work,” which is the whole truth in the metaphorical sense in the case of, say, Kung Pow! because it’s a defectively conceived film and the humor just doesn’t work. Any reputable business will swap out your opened DVD for a fresh, unopened number directly off the rack.

At this point you may be shaking my book and screaming “So what? Now I’ve bought another copy of the same awful DVD. How does this help me in any way?”

Patience, my sinister-minded son. You’re only halfway home. True, you may have a copy of an awful DVD in one hand, but in your back pocket you’ll still have the receipt from the original purchase. This document combined with your new DVD equals cash. If you want to be sneaky and prudent about it, you can just come back the next day and make the return, or you can be a hard-ass and just go for it in the same transaction. There’s a decent chance you’ll have to do some arguing to get your way, but relax—so long as you retain your composure and refuse to give in, you’ll win because you’re standing not only on the moral high ground but the legally firm position. All you need to do is have the manager read the part on the receipt that likely says, “Unopened discs may be returned within seven days” and you make him look like an ass in front of everyone in line.

You’ll be an instant intergalactic hero. Once your opponent gingerly hands you the receipt that says the purchase price has been credited back to your account, feel free to shout the “ZEEEOOOW!” sound of the light saber in an act of glorious domination. The geeks in line behind you will understand where you’re coming from.

Squeaky Clean


Dear ‘gamers’ — I’m surprised at you. You have been showing up here at Sexy Videogameland to swoon over Catherine trailers; you pile on my Formspring to ask me about my nerdy Metal Gear Solid theories (when you are not asking me creepy questions about my sex life and/or shoe size). If you are really cool, you’ve tossed a couple bucks the way of Babycastles, because you believe that the work of indie designers should have a home in New York City. To be a part of something special! For the future! For your children! Or because you want a copy of We Love Katamari autographed by Keita Takahashi, whatever.

You don’t just enjoy video games; you love them and you live them. Maybe you grew up with them, like I did, as described in my current series at Thought Catalog (now up to Part Two! Part One is here.) But when I told you about how developers tell me some game publishers overuse focus testing to rationalize developing only formula-driven, risk-averse status quo video games, (thus stifling creativity and making innovation scarce) so many of you shrugged breezily and told me, “it’s just a business.”

It’s naive and idealistic to think that games are more than simple consumer products and that there’s more potential in the medium than its ability to make tons of money. So lemme be naive and idealistic — I’m the one that has to get up in front of everyone and yak about it, so you guys can nod along or not.

So, uh… why aren’t you all nodding along? Are games just consumer products to you, like soap or something? At Kotaku this month, I examine the schism between our experiential, artistic and emotional fondness for games and the biz-driven “product” identity games have carried since the 1980′s when they were sold as novelties beside VCRs and music players. Check it out!

Fun ‘insider info’– while editing my column Stephen Totilo and I took bets on how long it would take someone to post a picture of Soap McTavish. Guess how long it took.

Wii remote soap in the image was found here, along with some other pictures of crazy/awesome video game soap. The new banner was a present from Matthew Carstensen, who has a pretty interesting blog.

Today’s good song is the chip-ish and flipping excellent cover of Japandroids’ Wet Hair done by Teen Daze. I’m posting it here rather than tucking it away in brackets because it has a game-like sound you guys might like. This looks like a fan-made video done, appropriately, to animations from the Scott Pilgrim video game.

And while I am slamming amazing things into your faces, let me remind you that you pretty much have to get the soundtrack to that game. Duh, Anamanaguchi.

Remember when I did an interview article on them circa 2k9? Think I said they ‘might break through’. Think I was ‘totally right’.


Dear ‘gamers’ — I’m surprised at you. You have been showing up here at Sexy Videogameland to swoon over Catherine trailers; you pile on my Formspring to ask me about my nerdy Metal Gear Solid theories (when you are not asking me creepy questions about my sex life and/or shoe size). If you are really cool, you’ve tossed a couple bucks the way of Babycastles, because you believe that the work of indie designers should have a home in New York City. To be a part of something special! For the future! For your children! Or because you want a copy of Katamari Damacy autographed by Keita Takahashi, whatever.

You don’t just enjoy video games; you love them and you live them. Maybe you grew up with them, like I did, as described in my current series at Thought Catalog (now up to Part Two! Part One is here.) But when I told you about how developers tell me some game publishers overuse focus testing to rationalize developing only formula-driven, risk-averse status quo video games, thus stifling their creativity and resulting in an industry where innovation is rare and challenging, so many of you shrugged breezily and told me, “it’s just a business.”
It’s naive and idealistic to think that games are more than simple consumer products and that there’s more potential in the medium than its ability to make tons of money. So lemme me naive and idealistic — I’m the one that has to get up in front of everyone and yak about it, so you guys can nod along or not.
So, uh… why aren’t you all nodding along? Are games just consumer products to you, like soap or something? At Kotaku this month, I examine the schism between our experiential, artistic and emotional fondness for games and the biz-driven “product” identity games have carried since the 1980′s when they were sold as novelties beside VCRs and music players. Check it out!
Fun insider image — while editing my column Stephen Totilo and I took bets on how long it would take someone to post a picture of Soap McTavish. Guess.
Wii remote soap in the image was found here, along with some other pictures of crazy/awesome video game soap. The new banner was a present from Matthew Carstensen, who has a pretty interesting blog.
Today’s good song is the chip-ish and flipping excellent cover of Japandroids’ Wet Hair done by Teen Daze. I’m posting it here rather than tucking it away in brackets because it has a game-like sound you guys might like. This looks like a fan-made video done, appropriately, to animations from the Scott Pilgrim video game.

And while I am slamming amazing things into your faces, let me remind you that you pretty much have to get the soundtrack to that game. Duh, Anamanaguchi.

Remember when I did an interview article on them circa 2k9? Think I said they ‘might break through’. Think I was ‘totally right.’